MIP: Biomaterials, Polymers, and Advanced Constructs from Integrated Chemistry Materials Innovation Platform (BioPACIFIC MIP)

About This Grant

The BioPACIFIC MIP (Biomaterials, Polymers and Advanced Constructs from Integrated Chemistry Materials Innovation Platform), located at the University of California's (UC) Santa Barbara and Los Angeles campuses, is a research platform dedicated to scalable, high-throughput, and data-driven development of new bio-based materials with levels of performance better than available through standard manufacturing workflows. The MIP offers state-of-the-art robotic systems, other cutting-edge tools, easy-to-access databases, and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, which enable researchers to rapidly and reproducibly make novel materials. An interdisciplinary team of faculty and researchers provides education and hands-on training to users from both academia and industry, and participants gain access to world-class instrumentation and expertise. By giving students, researchers, and companies the chance to learn and make discoveries, BioPACIFIC MIP helps turn scientific ideas into novel materials and supports their translation to commercial products through startups and industry partnerships. The discovery and development of advanced biomaterials with novel properties is the central focus of the BioPACIFIC MIP. This goal is realized through the integration of synthetic biology, chemistry, and materials science that enables rapid and scalable discovery, screening, and scale-up of high-performance, bio-based materials with precise control over structure and function. Engineered organisms produce high-functionality monomers that support material circularity and degradability, while high-throughput synthetic chemistry enables sequence-defined polymers and advanced architectures. These synthetic workflows feed into Materials Genome Initiative-based loops that combine hierarchical computation, machine learning and AI-driven simulation, and in-line and ex-situ characterization to explore vast design landscapes. This approach enables inverse design of high-performance, stimuli-responsive, and bio-derived polymers, while revealing key structure–property relationships that govern material assembly, degradation, and function. Critically, this positions the MIP to support a national biomaterials innovation strategy and advances U.S. leadership in biotechnology and biomanufacturing. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.